Forum: empire-en

Board: [589] Strategy & Tactics Discussion

Topic: [80491] Humpers' Empire Guide: Tools and Rubies

[1474038] Humpers2 [None] :: Jan. 28, 2013, 2:04 p.m.

Arratay wrote: »

I have seen many battle reports and even a failed attack on the capital. There were 260 ranged defenders on the wall, all on the left flank with arrow slits and some firemoats . The leader of my alliance sent a capture of 1080 veteran macemen with the tool slots all filled up with cast iron mantlets. However, only the fourth wave of attack came through, barely. This is proof that it is not possible for 200 soldiers to defeat ranged defenders even if the defenders have 0% defence, much less one soldier.

Since this would be a flaw in the game, I believe that GGS would not allow it. Ranged defenders cannont go below 100% of their strength, the same way wall protection can't go below 0%. Don't waste mantlets.

This is not a flaw in the game at all and you are spouting incorrect information, something which grates on me considerably since it is misinformation which leads to unnecessary losses, time, cost and effort.

Firstly though sending a 1040 all of macemen is just a horrible horrible idea. In 30 seconds someone can quick swap in thousands of melee defenders from other castles so when attacking it is a fundamental concept that regardless of the spy report at the time not to tailor the attack entirely to that. I mean I often remove tools and set up horrible defenses when I'm online, and then re-set on downtimes to strong defense, hoping someone will come in with weak tools and then bam, they hit the armourer tools. This is not an uncommon strategy. Sending a 1040 of purely melee/ranged attackers is. And its a horrible one.

If your leader had sent enough ruby tools to reduce the ranged effectiveness to 0, and there were only ranged def as you claim then he would have won the battle with 0 losses incurred. Without the report itself I cannot statistically prove that your leader did not reduce the ranged effectiveness to 0, that said if he used ruby mantlets and not shield walls then it is unlikely that he was able to reduce ranged effectiveness to 0 when up against armourer def tools, namely the arrow slits.

I challenge you to provide one piece of evidence to support your false claims before providing incorrect information.

[1476482] ThornPrickley [None] :: Jan. 30, 2013, 11:07 p.m.

There seem to be alot of people who can't provide evidence to their false claims lately.


AWESOME guide btw, It taught me a few things about the game, and I've been playing for a good while now.

[1477091] MagicMike06 [None] :: Jan. 31, 2013, 6:20 p.m.

First Off I think this is an great guide but I did have a question about the whole mantel thing i got that 20 mantels reducing ranger defenders down to 0. But if they have a fire arrow that increases there strength to 125% or even 150% how does that play into effect would u need like 30 mantels(150%) to make them have 0% effectiveness i've been trying to play around with the RB and am not finding a better way to make it around them with all their defense bonuses and lastly does the stone thrower add 25% effectiveness to all defenders on the wall including range as well. Just confused on if the range defender is at 100% effectiveness with 2 fire arrows increasing it by 150% and 1 stone thrower another 25% and lvl 4 walls so another 80% so basically the range defender now has a strength of 250% with all the bonus combined is that correct??

[1477439] Humpers2 [None] :: Feb. 1, 2013, 1:50 a.m.

@MagicMike-correct you'd need 30 mantlets to take down 2x fire arrow slots. HOWEVER, if you check the spy report you can see how many tools there are. By sending a swordsmen or other cheap easily replaceable unit on its own with no tools in a wave before your mantlet wave, you can use up one tool/slot/wave, meaning if there is say 1 bulwark and 1 fire arrows you can send one swordsmen in before-hand in wave 1 and then 20 mantlets in wave 2. I hope this makes sense

Now the latter issue about wall bonus is the crux of my mantlets section: wall bonus has no impact on ranged defenders IF the ranged EFFECTIVENESS is reduced to 0. In other words if you use enough mantlet to bring ranged effectiveness to 0 (using martyr waves as I have described above and 20 mantlets) or just 30 mantlets in wave 1, then the wall bonus need not be countered assuming a flank def that is entirely ranged.

Any other queries/doubts, fire away

Any further queries or doubts go for it.

[1477557] Andrea McCart [None] :: Feb. 1, 2013, 3:15 a.m.

Great Tool... i wish i'd had this guide when i first started. I've got it in my MS Word so i can read it from start to finish ... Good job!!!

[1477594] MagicMike06 [None] :: Feb. 1, 2013, 3:48 a.m.

Thanks for the quick reply this is awesome advice !!!

[1478581] matthew27 [None] :: Feb. 2, 2013, 12:53 p.m.

when is the next one coming since I have loved reading what you have done so far. Keep it up mate.:D

[1482012] Deucey [None] :: Feb. 7, 2013, 11:11 p.m.

I've read your guide over and over multiple times and I just can't get enough of it. It's like a bible for this game.
I appreciate your effort in explaining the mechanics of this game and I really look forward to more being revealed soon. Thanks again friend.

[1485776] Arko9699 [None] :: Feb. 13, 2013, 4:03 a.m.

Humpers,

Mate, let me start by saying - your explanations are awesome :thumbsup: ! They have fluid narration, they are backed by statistics derived from experience & painstaking research

Now, I have a question on - whether the defense split up between melee & ranged troops, while one is online, should happen counting pure headcount or strengths of attackers. The assumption is of course, the defense tools would nullify the offense tools. The below gives an explanation

Suppose on a flank I am being attacked by 48 Travelling Knights & 91 Travelling Crossbowmen [just 2 random numbers] & I am defending with veteran spearmen & veteran bowmen

If the distribution is by headcount, then optimum defensive measure will be achieved by having 35:65 [i.e. 48/(48+91) : 91/(48+91)] melee & ranged defenders

If it's by troop strength, then 48 knights would have a firepower of 6336, whereas 91 crossbowmen would have 8107. A vet spearman has 142 defense against melee attackers whereas a vet bowman has 132 defense against ranged attackers. So I will need 6336/142=45 vet spearmen & 8107/132=62 vet bowmen. They are in the ratio, 42:58 [i.e. 45/(45+62) : 62/(45+62)]

Clearly there is a significant difference between headcount vis-a-vis troop strength method. Hence my question, which one have you experienced

Thanks ...

[1486638] BobFighter834 (INT2) [None] :: Feb. 14, 2013, 6:09 p.m.

A very good guide - one of the few that actually *does* deserves a place in the "Tips and Tricks" section. Well done, and I hope you carry on adding to the guide.

One thing you may wish to think about - there is a 20,000 character limit on a single post, so you may have to end up splitting the guide into sections.

[1487785] Humpers2 [None] :: Feb. 16, 2013, 3:34 a.m.

Arko9699 wrote: »

Humpers,

Mate, let me start by saying - your explanations are awesome :thumbsup: ! They have fluid narration, they are backed by statistics derived from experience & painstaking research

Now, I have a question on - whether the defense split up between melee & ranged troops, while one is online, should happen counting pure headcount or strengths of attackers. The assumption is of course, the defense tools would nullify the offense tools. The below gives an explanation

Suppose on a flank I am being attacked by 48 Travelling Knights & 91 Travelling Crossbowmen [just 2 random numbers] & I am defending with veteran spearmen & veteran bowmen

If the distribution is by headcount, then optimum defensive measure will be achieved by having 35:65 [i.e. 48/(48+91) : 91/(48+91)] melee & ranged defenders

If it's by troop strength, then 48 knights would have a firepower of 6336, whereas 91 crossbowmen would have 8107. A vet spearman has 142 defense against melee attackers whereas a vet bowman has 132 defense against ranged attackers. So I will need 6336/142=45 vet spearmen & 8107/132=62 vet bowmen. They are in the ratio, 42:58 [i.e. 45/(45+62) : 62/(45+62)]

Clearly there is a significant difference between headcount vis-a-vis troop strength method. Hence my question, which one have you experienced

Thanks ...

I have in the past made a formulaic excel calculator based on this but nowadays there are a lot of modifiers such as commanders etc making things slightly different. But in short yes you are correct with your consideration of varying troop strengths being more important than headcount. One way of considering it, is an extension of your though, what if you saw 100 travelling crossbowmen and 100 basic macemen. You would without much thought consider stacking more ranged defenders, no?




However, you are missing out something which makes these kind of calculations slightly unreliable, namely that when you have incoming attack you cannot see the actual ratio of attackers in each wave meaning that you will never be able to minimise losses (before I have played around with attacks which look like they are 75% ranged 25% melee but on the first wave the ratios are reversed and the second wave stronger in melee than it appears.

Hope this all makes sense.

[1490145] dodu (GB1) [None] :: Feb. 18, 2013, 5:05 p.m.

love what is up so far
only problem is that it is not finished.

[1490422] GhjHero [None] :: Feb. 19, 2013, 12:01 a.m.

I love it, but don't understand one thing. You said that I'd the attacker brings a lot of wall tools then you should take all stone throwing out. Why would you do that? Wouldn't it give the attacker a bigger advantage?

[1491337] Zelda Gould (US1) [None] :: Feb. 20, 2013, 8:05 a.m.

Your guide is exactly what I have been looking for. Hope you are still going to finish it. Thanks for posting.

[1491461] Humpers2 [None] :: Feb. 20, 2013, 1:50 p.m.

GhjHero wrote: »

I love it, but don't understand one thing. You said that I'd the attacker brings a lot of wall tools then you should take all stone throwing out. Why would you do that? Wouldn't it give the attacker a bigger advantage?

If the attacker overloads on one type of attacking tool it is impossible to defend that bonus. Essentially if an attacker comes with all siege towers in one slot (just as an example) it would be impossible to get any wall bonus whatsoever from having any wall tools.

What you must consider is that the wall bonus is just a bonus. If you lose it, it does not cause any additional advantages to the attacker.

For example: your castle wall defense is at 90% if you have level 4 walls. Then if you see an attacker with 20 siege towers (-300% wall defense), if you have no wall defense tools then that -210% makes no difference in comparison with an attacker who has sent 6 siege towers who would reduce it to 0 exactly (6x15%). The point is that with the tools that you could put in place reducing such a big factor (-210%), it would be much more effective to bolster ranged defense effectiveness, for which we can assume with so many tools of one type the attacker has under-committed with regards to others.

Hope this makes sense.

[1493685] GhjHero [None] :: Feb. 23, 2013, 11:44 p.m.

Ok I think I've got it.

[1494201] Humpers2 [None] :: Feb. 24, 2013, 5:25 p.m.

Ok any more questions or it doesnt work as expected post here of course and I'll do my best to explain.

[1494305] Rob Miller [None] :: Feb. 24, 2013, 8:03 p.m.

great guide, thank you so much

[1498201] Rainbow77 [None] :: March 1, 2013, 5:40 p.m.

I did the mantlets experiment just now on the dragon, dragon range bonus is 147% I attacked with 15 iron mantlets, and I lost 4 soldiers (frontal).
In the middle there are only dragon fires, they are ranged defenders.
I did the same before the equipment update without casualties (frontal).
So mantlets work very well but 100%. Maybe mantlets dont work 100% on defender equipment bonus ?

[1499206] panther6 [None] :: March 2, 2013, 11:07 p.m.

Wow great job new member to the game.Very informative!